Who on Earth is Alex Rider?
by ShadowedHeavens
Summary: Alex Rider is a spy, the best and most efficient in his line of work. But he is only a boy. What happens when the famed Rider simply cannot take anymore bullying from his peers at Brooklands? He snaps - and sets his classmates straight. But his half-answers leaves the entire school wondering: "Who on Earth is Alex Rider?" Two-in-one oneshot, reveal-fic, no pairings.


**A/N: Hi. This is the second story that I have posted on** **** **(Although I have deleted the first one) and it is a two-in-one one-shot sort of thing. This piece was totally random and was written in a single explosion of inspiration – so sorry if it is not very good. Anyway, enjoy!**

 ** _Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider – it belongs to the wonderful Anthony Horowitz!_**

Alex Rider sat at his desk in the back row of his Politics class, staring at his MI6 issue watch as if that would make the minute hand move faster. There was a whole 37 minutes until the end of school, then he would be free to go home and spend the rest of the day messing around with Jack. Why did he choose this class again? Oh right, because he thought it would be an easy A and he _really_ needed it. Well, Alex concluded, at least school was better than Peru. Or being fed to crocodiles. Or defusing a bomb in outer space. Or SAS camp. Alex frowned at that – actually, he would much rather prefer to be running the obstacle course at BB than being stuck in a classroom, bored out of his mind, with the world's most boring teacher droning on and on about the little that was known of MI6 and CORBRA. He glanced at his watch again. Not even a full minute had passed. Inwardly sighing, Alex felt like banging his head on desk repeatedly, only he didn't. It would only attract negative attention, and he didn't need any more of _that_.

Since his return to school last week, from another 'severe case of measles', he had been getting even more stares than last time. He supposed it was because of his former friend, Marcus, the school's golden boy and football captain, finally turning against him and spreading even nastier rumours around school. Even the teachers were starting to look at him with a hint of fear in their probing gazes. For the past week, with Tom visiting his brother in Italy, whispered conversations had erupted everywhere he went. It was all stuff like: "Druggie's back from prison. It's a miracle they even let him out!" and "I heard he killed his uncle and housekeeper because they found out he leads a gang." and "No, _I_ heard he was hired by a wanted criminal to assassinate the head of the CIA!"

Alex had winced when he heard about the last one – it struck a little too close to home. It was the deputy head, now head, of MI6, not CIA, and it was a few months ago, but still. After school that day, out in the open of the front yard of Brooklands Comprehensive, was when Marcus finally decided to confront him. Alex felt his fists involuntarily clench, remembering that one afternoon well.

 _*Flashback*_

"Druggie!" came a call from behind him.

"Go away, Marcus," Alex replied, not even sparing the bully a glance.

"Hey, Druggie, where's that poor excuse of an uncle? Oh yeah. He's in Hell for looking after you." Marcus's cronies let out loud, ugly laughs, attracting the attention of most of the students in front of waiting for friends, or a ride. They started to walk over, eager for a show.

"Go away, Marcus," Alex repeated tiredly. "I don't have time for this." He kept walking, but Marcus still trailed after him, the crowd boosting his confidence.

"How about your housekeeper, then? It's a wonder she even stays with you, considering…" He let himself trail off, looking Alex up and down in disgust, taking in his rumpled clothes, scuffed shoes and dishevelled dirty blonde hair. Alex looked around, heart sinking. Unfortunately, there weren't any teachers in sight. He was exhausted, having been running on a grand total of 6 hours of sleep for the past eight days. A fortnight ago, he had been called in to the 'bank' for an impromptu mission and had returned with a new knife wound in his left forearm and the word ' _law_ ' carved into the back of his left shoulder. Basically, he couldn't use his left arm for the next couple of weeks, and him being Alex Rider, he obviously refused to take his pain meds. He was sleep-deprived, cranky and in pain: he really didn't need any trouble from his former friend right now.

"Hey, don't ignore me when I'm talking to you!" Marcus lunged at him, angrily grabbed his shoulder and pulled him around. Alex stumbled, stars dancing before his eyes as his shoulder erupted with pain.

"Ah!" he gasped, throwing his right hand to his shoulder, as if trying to hold it together. He sank to his knees, trying desperately to keep the pain back. As the pain subsided, and the stars faded away, he slowly stood up and faced the bully, who quickly masked the shock on his face.

"Looks like Rider isn't so tough after all," he sneered disdainfully, turning around as if to leave. Gratefully, Alex did as well. He had been on the verge of exploding, and with his… _skills_ , it would not have ended well, for both Marcus and him. Suddenly, the crowd that now surrounded them, burst into whispered conversations. He froze, a shiver of dread working its way down his spine. _What has he done now?_

"Oh, one more thing, _Druggie_ ," drawled Marcus lazily. He turned. His former friend was holding up a picture of his parents. It showed them with a giggling baby of about ten months squirming on his mother's lap at the seaside. Helen Rider was looking down at the baby fondly, while John Rider hugged her and positively _beamed_ at the camera. The sun was just setting in the horizon, its rays of red-orange light reflecting appealingly on tranquil waves that lapped against the golden-brown sand. Alex didn't know who had taken the photo, and didn't care, as this was the only photo he had of his parents, alive and well. The _only_ one. And it was dangling in Marcus's grasp, taunting him.

He tensed, preparing for a fight. "Where did you get that?"

"This old thing?" Marcus faked a yawn. "It's from your locker. Unfortunately, I didn't find any drugs there; you must have hidden them somewhere else."

Alex ignored that last jab. "Give. It. Back," he spat through gritted teeth.

The bully waved it photo back and forth provokingly. "Oh, you want this?" Sickening, syrupy sweetness dripped off his voice and he smiled, a perfect picture of innocence. Alex took a deep breath, fighting against his anger. He was not out in the field. He was in school with a bunch of schoolkids. He would not give in. He would keep control. He would –

With an awful ' _rip_ ' that echoed through the now silent schoolyard, the photo was slowly, but surely shredded in half. He let out an instinctive half sob, half gasp.

No.

The only thing that kept him from forgetting his mother and father's faces. Again and again, Marcus tore at the glossy paper, until all that was left fluttered to the ground in pieces. His only tie to his parents had literally been ripped apart. He sank to the ground for the second time that day, but this time frozen with shock and grief. No. He told himself shakily, _this is a dream. Just a dream._ But nothing could obscure the blurring fragments of colour on the ground.

"Oops. My hand slipped."

Laughter echoed mockingly all around. He could see people sniggering and pointing at the seemingly defeated figure on the ground. They were sharing jokes. Jokes about him, the so-called 'Druggie'. It was ironic, he thought absently, that these people assumed he was doing drugs, when he was the one who stopped a drug lord – heck, he stopped crazy people from destroying the world as they know it, and still, they called him 'Druggie'. Marcus's scathing voice cut through his shocked reverie.

"Where are your parents anyway?" The bully waved a dismissive hand. "Doesn't matter. They were probably so ashamed of you from the moment you showed them your repulsive face, that they ran, left you. Just like that. They didn't care about you."

That was the last straw. For more than a whole year now, he had been pushed around, bullied and out-casted by the ones who he had called friends. The entire school population had been turned against him, and it was all. MI6's. Fault. Alex simply couldn't take it anymore.

He roughly passed a hand over his face and struggled upright.

"You think you know everything about me." His quiet voice cut through the chatter like a knife slicing through softened butter. "But you don't," he continued softly. "You don't know what it's like to lose almost all of your friends, one by one, in the space of less than a year. You don't know what it's like to grow up without loving parents to care for you, or to be forced to grow up too early."

A sombre silence descended upon the group. All the pent-up thoughts and feelings he had secreted away in a small mental box suddenly came bursting out. He knew it was all classified, but if he didn't tell someone, he would explode. He didn't want to tell Jack, or Tom, or Sabina, didn't want to burden them with his problems, not when they already worried about him so.

"You don't know what it is like to be away from school so long, to lie to all of your friends until they leave you, or to have so much pressure on your shoulders, when all you want to do is protect the ones you love." His serious brown eyes grew distant, whispering that he was a million miles away. "To be blackmailed into doing things you don't want to do. To be dive into assignments headfirst, with hardly any information. To be tortured, to be double-crossed, triple-crossed, and even quadruple-crossed and to be almost adopted by a gun-wielding madman who was intent on destroying half the world with numerous nuclear submarines." His eyes hardened, eyes that didn't belong to a schoolboy, eyes that spoke about seeing far more death and destruction than a common soldier would in his entire lifetime. "And to answer your question, my parents are dead; they were murdered – bombed actually, by my godfather. What a messed up family I've got." He laughed bitterly and turned away; the crowd parted for him like the Red Sea for Moses.

"So you see, Marcus, you don't know me," he concluded almost inaudibly. "You don't know me at all."

There was another silence, more ominous this time, like a shadow looming over them.

"A-Alex," Marcus stammered, finally at a loss for words. "I-I didn't know…"

Alex blinked in exhaustion. "Just forget it."

He crouched, gathered his fallen belongings with swift, smooth motions and walked away, silent as a ghost, the students of Brooklands shifting uneasily in his wake. Now they had even more questions than before, the main one dominating their thoughts being: "Who on Earth is Alex Rider?"

 _*end flashback*_

"Rider! Mr Rider!" yelled a voice, breaking into his brief session of daydreaming.

He started violently, hand reaching down to his belt, where he kept an emergency gun given to him by MI6. They had decided, after his previous assignment, that they would give him some sort of self-defence weapon, just as a safety precaution. Looking up, his hand slackened as he caught sight of his teacher's greying hair. Mr Smith was standing over his desk, wearing a disapproving expression. Alex found it funny that, while the teacher's name with so similar to Smithers', their personalities couldn't have been more different. Alex felt a pang at the name, having not seen Smithers since he had removed his fat suit, much like a snake shedding its skin. He shook himself out of his thoughts.

"Yes, sir?"

The politics teacher pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Please pay attention, Mr Rider."

"Yes, sir."

"Now, when was the first intelligence sector created?"

Alex opened his mouth to answer, when the door jolted open, interrupting him. A man dressed in the uniform of an SAS soldier burst in.

Mr Smith ' _harrumphed_ ' in annoyance.

"Now, now, you cannot just burst into my classroom like that, and in the middle of an important lesson too! I must ask you to go outside again and knock _politely_ ," the teacher told the soldier, who ignored him completely, scanning the room instead, his gaze landing on Alex.

Alex mentally groaned. Oh, come on! What now? He stood up, catching the attention of the entire class. Great.

"Alex, sit down! This has nothing to do with you!" the girl sitting in front of him hissed. Alex just rolled his eyes. This unexpected appearance of the SAS most _certainly_ had something to do with him.

"This had better be important," he stated. At his voice, the soldier immediately snapped to attention.

"Alex Rider! Show some respect for your elders and betters!" a snide voice interrupted. Alex sighed. Mr Smith, yet again.

"Look, just shut up okay?"

A simultaneous gasp travelled around the room and the teacher turned an ugly shade of puce.

"Mr Rider! That is no way to–"

Alex simply turned to the soldier again. "Report?"

"You are needed immediately, sir."

"They can't just pull me out in the middle of school!" Alex protested. "We've agreed on that!"

"But it's an emergency. Does Code," the solder thought for a moment, recalling a piece of information. "'298' mean anything to you, sir?"

Alex's face drained of colour. "A-are you sure they said 298?"

The soldier nodded vehemently. "Positive, sir."

Alex started stuffing things haphazardly into his schoolbag. "We need to go."

He threw his bag over his shoulder and ran out of the door with the soldier following hot on his heels, yet again leaving a stunned audience in his wake. They heard one last hurried, fading sentence from Alex. "Take me to MI6 HQ. Now."

Silence. Then, the classroom exploded with questions.

One query in particular could be heard above the noise, confusion, and general chaos: "Who on _Earth_ is Alex Rider?"

 _*END*_

 **A/N: so what do you think? Sorry if Alex was really OOC. Any tips, constructive criticism? Please review!**


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